Record saga continues

Alliance issues rebuttal against Spray's musky

Posted: April 8, 2006

The
World Record Musky Alliance, an Illinois-based group that wants Louis
Spray's world record musky disqualified, has released a "rebuttal" to
the National Fresh water Fishing Hall of Fame's decision to uphold
Spray's record.

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The rebuttal states that the alliance:

• No longer recognizes the Hall of Fame, in Hayward, as a viable international record-keeping entity.

• Joins the Florida-based International Game Fish Association in
recognizing a 67-pound, 60 1/4-inch musky caught by Cal Johnson in 1949
as the world record, pending authentication and review by the alliance.

• Calls on the Hall of Fame to either immediately disqualify Spray's
record musky - listed at 69 pounds, 11 ounces and caught on Wisconsin's
Chippewa Flowage in 1949 - or turn the matter over to an independent
professional arbitrator for review.

"This is not the WRMA against the Hall of Fame," said Jerry Newman,
founder of the alliance. "It's the WRMA authenticating the brass ring
of our sport. It's all about the fish."

Rich Delaney, president of the alliance, said: "We feel our evidence, as presented to the Hall of Fame, stands."

In October, the alliance filed its protest, which included a
photo-analysis that concluded that Spray's fish was only about 56.6
inches long, not the 63 1/2 inches that Spray had claimed. The alliance
asked the Hall of Fame to disqualify Spray's current world record, plus
his two previous world record muskies.

In January, the Hall of Fame announced that its board of directors
had voted to uphold Spray's record, citing photo-analysis opinions from
two math professors - Dorian Goldfeld, of Columbia University in New
York and Joseph A. Gallian, of the University of Minnesota-Duluth - as
supporting the length of Spray's fish.

In February, Goldfeld and Gallian, along with Douglas N. Arnold, of
the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities, sent a letter to the Hall of
Fame saying that their work was inconclusive and calling for a panel of
experts to examine all photos of Spray's fish to arrive at a more
definitive conclusion.

The alliance's rebuttal states: "Should the Hall choose to follow
their own experts' advice and impanel a wholly independent group of
photogrammetrists and mathematicians to evaluate all information
available, evaluating all known photographs in their original format,
the WRMA agrees to unequivocally accept whatever conclusion these
independent experts might arrive at."

Emmett A. Brown Jr., the Hall of Fame's executive director, said of
Gallian and Goldfeld: "The bottom line is, their conclusion still is
the fish, based solely on photo-analysis, very well could have been 63
inches."

Brown rejects the idea of an independent panel.

Brown said that photo-analyses, affidavits and other documentation,
and photos of the Spray's mounted musky all support that the fish was
as big as claimed.

"I'm very comfortable with the decision that we made," he said.

Brown called the alliance "a small group, a handful of musky zealots." The group has about 50 members, according to Delaney.

"I don't believe that the WMRA and their supporters are in the mainstream," Brown said.

If the alliance wants to challenge the Hall of Fame board's
decision, they have to comply with the hall's new protest policy which
requires a $1,500 "protest fee" intended to discourage frivolous
protests, Brown said.

The alliance contends that, since its original protest was not
properly addressed, no further protest is necessary. "We consider our
current protest of Mr. Spray's records unresolved, open and pending,"
the rebuttal states.

In a related matter, Muskies Inc. International endorsed the
creation of a Modern Day Muskellunge Word Record Keeping Program at its
meeting in Minneapolis earlier this month.

The program was developed by Larry Ramsell, a longtime fish
historian with the Hall of Fame who resigned to protest the way the
hall handled the challenge to Spray's record. Ramsell has assembled a
committee of musky experts who would review applications from people
who catch or have caught muskies, 60 pounds or bigger, or hybrid
muskies, 40 pounds or bigger.

"We all agreed that we needed a program that could establish
credible and justifiable records," Ramsell said of the committee. "We
think it will be good for the modern musky angler."

Old, unverified records would be listed in a separate category
called "historical and legendary" fish, said Ramsell, a former member
of the alliance.